Moreover, in _Homer and History_, Leaf does not suggest any solution of an important problem to which he refers in previous works—the problems presented by the reference to wergeld in the Homeric passage which describes the Shield of Achilles.[15] In a note of his translation of the _Iliad_ (1883), he said[16]: ‘The trial scene is one of the most difficult and puzzling passages in Homer.... The whole passage is clearly archaic, but the difficulty lies in the fact that no parallel, so far as we know, is to be found in the procedure of any primitive races which throws any light upon this passage.’ In his _Companion to the Iliad_ (1892) and in his latest edition of the _Iliad_ (1902), in a note on the passage in question,[17] he put forward an hypothesis which seems to suggest that he conceives the Homeric Greeks as quasi-barbarous peoples. Having indicated the frequency of blood-for-blood retaliation in the _Iliad_, he interprets the trial-scene as representing a stage in the evolution of homicide customs from more primitive conditions. ‘It seems absolutely necessary to assume an intermediate stage in which the community asserted the right to say in every case whether the next of kin should, for reasons of public policy, accept compensation, and the missing link is apparently brought before us here.’ By assuming that the trial-scene represents, not a murder trial (which few now maintain) nor yet a wergeld debt trial, _i.e._ an inquiry as to whether wergeld has been paid or not, but a piece of novel homicide legislation, Leaf thinks that ‘the scene gains enormously in importance.’ Postponing for a time[18] our criticism of this view, published thirteen years before the date of _Homer and History_, and deferring the solution which we shall offer of the difficulty, we proceed to state our own theory of the homicide customs of Homer. This theory is based in the first place on a distinction between an Achaean dominant caste and a subject Pelasgian people; secondly, on the hypothesis which Leaf puts forward as to the different character and mode of life of the Achaeans and the Pelasgians—the former being conceived as a race of bellicose military adventurers living in isolated groups; the latter, as an agricultural subject-people, tillers of the soil, who preserved intact their tribal organisations; thirdly, on the connexion existing between the homicide customs of a people or caste and their temperament and social organisation—a connexion which is established by a general study of blood-vengeance amongst various peoples; and, finally, on a correct interpretation of the text of Homer.